What Can the Texas Primary Tell Us About Democrats?

This week, the Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey was covering a campaign rally in Texas when she was ushered out. Elaine has been covering national politics for years, and has been turned away before—but, she says that has usually happened to her at Trump rallies. This time, she was turned away by a Democrat running in a Senate primary.

Representative Jasmine Crockett is known for her confrontational style, and it serves her well with her constituents, voters, and Democrats who are tired of playing nice when Republicans don’t. Last year, Godfrey profiled Crockett for The Atlantic, a story that Crockett tried to “shut down” when she found out her House colleagues were being interviewed. “Crockett is testing out the coarser, insult-comedy-style attacks that the GOP has embraced under Trump, the general idea being that when the Republicans go low, the Democrats should meet them there,” Godfrey wrote at the time. Is that where the rest of the party might be heading? We talked to Godfrey about her experience at the rally and the upcoming primary election in Texas.